Courageous Weapon: vs. Fear effects only?


Rules Questions


16 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required.

First things first:

Courageous wrote:
A courageous weapon fortifies the wielder's courage and morale in battle. The wielder gains a morale bonus on saving throws against fear equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus. In addition, any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon's enhancement bonus (minimum 1).

I noticed that Hero Labs was not applying any increase from my Barbarian's Courageous weapon to her morale bonus from Rage. I submitted a bug, and got this response:

Quote:
Increasing the effectiveness of every other morale bonus on the character would be an incredibly large benefit, and would be worth far more than a +1 enhancement. My reading of this ability is that if anything else grants a morale bonus to saves vs. fear, that specific bonus gets improved, which keeps this enhancement useful when someone casts bless.

I had thought the broader interpretation was accepted as fact, but this take is not unreasonable. It is a particularly powerful weapon enchantment for Barbarians.

I know that Hero Labs is not an official source, but it would be nice to know if I should be manually increasing my morale bonuses.


I have always taken it to mean "In Addition, any morale bonus [to saves vs fear] that the wielder gains..."... but I can certainly see the argument for reading it the other way too.


It affects all Morale bonuses or it would be useless--who cares that much about fear effects?

Hero Labs is not official, so don't worry about it.

Oh, and point out to that guy that morale effects are extremely rare.

Yes, the whole Barbarian class is designed around them, but otherwise it's Paladin Auras, the Cavalier's Banner, the Flagbearer feat, Inspire Courage (but only to saves vs. fear/charm), the Heroism and Good Hope Spells, and virtually nothing else.


mplindustries wrote:

It affects all Morale bonuses or it would be useless--who cares that much about fear effects?

Hero Labs is not official, so don't worry about it.

Oh, and point out to that guy that morale effects are extremely rare.

Yes, the whole Barbarian class is designed around them, but otherwise it's Paladin Auras, the Cavalier's Banner, the Flagbearer feat, Inspire Courage (but only to saves vs. fear/charm), the Heroism and Good Hope Spells, and virtually nothing else.

It says it applies to "any morale bonus", so by strict reading, I agree. But at least two people, probably more, have read it the other way. I know Hero Labs isn't perfect, but they're right a lot more often than they're wrong. I think it could use some clarification.


There's more of an argument there than I had hoped, so FAQed.

Shadow Lodge

I read it to apply to all morale bonuses, too. Just granting a morale bonus vs fear is very weak, even if half that bonus effectively stacks with other such bonuses.

You're paying +6,000 K for a +1 courageous weapon granting +1 vs fear (on its own or as an increase to other such bonuses). That's more than a +2 cloak of resistance giving +2 to all saves (or improving your +2 cloak to +3). It's +22 K for a +5 courageous weapon granting +5 vs fear or a +2 increase to other morale bonuses against fear. That's barely cheaper than a +5 cloak of resistance that gives you +5 on all saves, or if you already have such a cloak, a Luckstone that gives you +1 on all saves, skill checks, and ability checks.

Note that if you're making custom items a non-resistance bonus to all saves (like a nice rare luck bonus or sacred bonus that stacks with most things) is valued at 2K times bonus squared. That's:

2K for +1 vs +6K for courageous +1
8K for +2 vs +10K for courageous +2
18K for +3 vs +14K for courageous +3
32K for +4 vs +18K for courageous +4
50K for +5 vs +22K for courageous +5

The courageous weapon is a better deal as the bonuses go up, but you're still looking at, at best, 44% of the cost for less than 33% of the benefit (especially if you're getting that morale bonus from a bard, cavalier, or paladin and cutting the effective benefit of the item in half). It's clear that the "versus fear only" interpretation of courageous is not providing value.

mlpindustries wrote:

Oh, and point out to that guy that morale effects are extremely rare.

Yes, the whole Barbarian class is designed around them, but otherwise it's Paladin Auras, the Cavalier's Banner, the Flagbearer feat, Inspire Courage (but only to saves vs. fear/charm), the Heroism and Good Hope Spells, and virtually nothing else.

This, too. It works well with Barbarians and Bards, but it's not overpowering.

Grand Lodge

Herolab not liking it doesn't make it RAW.


blackbloodtroll wrote:
Herolab not liking it doesn't make it RAW.
redward wrote:
I know that Hero Labs is not an official source...
redward wrote:
I know Hero Labs isn't perfect, but they're right a lot more often than they're wrong.

Grand Lodge

I suppose I am stating the obvious.


redward wrote:

First things first:

Courageous wrote:
A courageous weapon fortifies the wielder's courage and morale in battle. The wielder gains a morale bonus on saving throws against fear equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus. In addition, any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon's enhancement bonus (minimum 1).

I noticed that Hero Labs was not applying any increase from my Barbarian's Courageous weapon to her morale bonus from Rage. I submitted a bug, and got this response:

Quote:
Increasing the effectiveness of every other morale bonus on the character would be an incredibly large benefit, and would be worth far more than a +1 enhancement. My reading of this ability is that if anything else grants a morale bonus to saves vs. fear, that specific bonus gets improved, which keeps this enhancement useful when someone casts bless.

I had thought the broader interpretation was accepted as fact, but this take is not unreasonable. It is a particularly powerful weapon enchantment for Barbarians.

I know that Hero Labs is not an official source, but it would be nice to know if I should be manually increasing my morale bonuses.

They're not wrong that Courageous is bonkers-level overpowered on a +4 (or +4 furious!) weapon if you have a barbarian, caster with Good Hope, or both (and you can just not buy it if you don't). I mean, it's giving you a +3 to hit, damage, saves, Strength (so even more hit and damage), and Con for a +1 equivalent bonus. But it's RAW as far as I can see.


RAW is the stronger interpretation (both senses intended), and I agree with it. Not many players have a Bard in their group (or are a Barbarian), so they most likely won't be using them otherwise. The bonus granting a gross amount of empowerment can be a bit frightening. But of course, something has to make the wielder so Courageous, since being a little less fear-tolerant is indeed quite laughable.


Does it work on Paladin Auras?

Grand Lodge

Can't Barbarians already be immune to fear with Rage Powers?

Running this enchantment over with a nerf train without RAW support is bad form.


Rogue Eidolon wrote:
redward wrote:

First things first:

Courageous wrote:
A courageous weapon fortifies the wielder's courage and morale in battle. The wielder gains a morale bonus on saving throws against fear equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus. In addition, any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon's enhancement bonus (minimum 1).

I noticed that Hero Labs was not applying any increase from my Barbarian's Courageous weapon to her morale bonus from Rage. I submitted a bug, and got this response:

Quote:
Increasing the effectiveness of every other morale bonus on the character would be an incredibly large benefit, and would be worth far more than a +1 enhancement. My reading of this ability is that if anything else grants a morale bonus to saves vs. fear, that specific bonus gets improved, which keeps this enhancement useful when someone casts bless.

I had thought the broader interpretation was accepted as fact, but this take is not unreasonable. It is a particularly powerful weapon enchantment for Barbarians.

I know that Hero Labs is not an official source, but it would be nice to know if I should be manually increasing my morale bonuses.

They're not wrong that Courageous is bonkers-level overpowered on a +4 (or +4 furious!) weapon if you have a barbarian, caster with Good Hope, or both (and you can just not buy it if you don't). I mean, it's giving you a +3 to hit, damage, saves, Strength (so even more hit and damage), and Con for a +1 equivalent bonus. But it's RAW as far as I can see.

So in a specific situation where you are a barbarian, with a bard in the part and you pay the costs of this weapon too, then it is very powerful.

So yes it takes a very specific (but not unreasonably so) set of circumstances to get the best use of this feature.

But just because the best use is very nice doesn't mean it's overpowered, and please note that it's only very nice for a single user...

Like say a bard with maxed inspire courage, good hope and haste up all at the same time all going off in the same turn. Yeah it's nice, but not the end of the world.


My concern isn't RAW. "Any morale bonus" is pretty unambiguous.

I'm concerned that there's a possibility this will be "clarified" or errata'd down the road and my PFS Barbarian will have sunk a chunk of her WBL in a sword that no longer works as advertised. If that's the case, I'd rather know now before I've actually spent the gold.


I think chances of it changing are fairly low. It's just a ridiculously good item for about the only class that'll use it.


Azaelas Fayth wrote:
Does it work on Paladin Auras?

Yes.


Abraham spalding wrote:
Rogue Eidolon wrote:
redward wrote:

First things first:

Courageous wrote:
A courageous weapon fortifies the wielder's courage and morale in battle. The wielder gains a morale bonus on saving throws against fear equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus. In addition, any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon's enhancement bonus (minimum 1).

I noticed that Hero Labs was not applying any increase from my Barbarian's Courageous weapon to her morale bonus from Rage. I submitted a bug, and got this response:

Quote:
Increasing the effectiveness of every other morale bonus on the character would be an incredibly large benefit, and would be worth far more than a +1 enhancement. My reading of this ability is that if anything else grants a morale bonus to saves vs. fear, that specific bonus gets improved, which keeps this enhancement useful when someone casts bless.

I had thought the broader interpretation was accepted as fact, but this take is not unreasonable. It is a particularly powerful weapon enchantment for Barbarians.

I know that Hero Labs is not an official source, but it would be nice to know if I should be manually increasing my morale bonuses.

They're not wrong that Courageous is bonkers-level overpowered on a +4 (or +4 furious!) weapon if you have a barbarian, caster with Good Hope, or both (and you can just not buy it if you don't). I mean, it's giving you a +3 to hit, damage, saves, Strength (so even more hit and damage), and Con for a +1 equivalent bonus. But it's RAW as far as I can see.

So in a specific situation where you are a barbarian, with a bard in the part and you pay the costs of this weapon too, then it is very powerful.

So yes it takes a very specific (but not unreasonably so) set of circumstances to get the best use of this feature.

But just because the best use is very nice doesn't mean it's overpowered, and please note that it's only very nice for a single user...

Like say...

The problem is that it's bad item design (for a home group) because you will always know if you are in the optimal circumstances before you buy the weapon enhancement. Consider a version of bane that was called boon, a +1 equivalent weapon enhancement where you pick a type of ranger favored enemy, and the weapon gets an additional +2 enhancement bonus and adds 2d6 damage if the wielder is of that type. This would be a poorly designed and overpowered enhancement, since anyone could just buy a weapon that is boon for their own race. Bane is not similarly overpowered because whether it triggers in a particular fight depends on the environment, not on the party composition. (If you're wondering about furious here and how it falls in my logic, it is extremely powerful and I've never seen a barbarian not take it, but it grants substantially less than courageous).

EDIT: As for the single user thing, +4 courageous is a must-buy for every character who uses weapons in a party with a bard, barbarian or not, if you get to those levels anyway. +2 to hit, damage, saves, and skills is crazy good. Unless the bard refuses to pack good hope or like the Flagbearer feat.


I agree it's good, but from +1 to +3 it only gives the minimum +1 to any of the morale bonuses. Until then, a Barbarian is really only seeing a benefit to saves (more-so with Superstition)--unless they have odd Str or Con scores. Obviously, the benefit increases once Bards are introduced into the equation.


This may help:
The two spells used in construction of this enchantment are Heroism and Remove Fear. Remove Fear accounts for the the save against fear. Heroism (the spell) gives a morale bonus to attacks, saves, and skill checks, which seems odd to include if this enchantment only applied vs. fear.

Silver Crusade

Still not fixed, a real shame.


Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Still not fixed, a real shame.

If you want it fixed in Hero Lab, your best bet is to submit a bug report or post on their forums:

Pathfinder Bug Reports

Silver Crusade

redward wrote:
Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Still not fixed, a real shame.

If you want it fixed in Hero Lab, your best bet is to submit a bug report or post on their forums:

Pathfinder Bug Reports

I considered a bug report, but as you postet this seemed to be intentional. I would open a post, but I haven't been able to find a source for our interpretation.

Silver Crusade

redward wrote:
Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Still not fixed, a real shame.

If you want it fixed in Hero Lab, your best bet is to submit a bug report or post on their forums:

Pathfinder Bug Reports

Just send a friendly bug report, with the suggestion to re-evaluate the topic, considering, that most people seemed to agree with the common interpretation.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

After my bug report

bug report:

The courageous weapon enhancement doesn't increase the bonus from
spells like heroism (which gives a moral bonus).
I checked in the paizo.com forum, and it seems that my interpretation
of the ability (that it increases every moral bonus) is used by pretty
much everyone. It seems, to be regarded as a highly effective weapon
enhancement for barbarians and groups with bards, maybe even to good
for a +1, but that seems to be the RAW.

It would be nice, if this issue could be re-evaluated. Thank you very
much, otherwise I am a very happy customer.

I received a very nice answer:

Lone Wolf Development Support wrote:


I'm sorry, but we're still hoping that Paizo clarifies the way this power is intended to work. Before we spend many hours finding every ability in Pathfinder that grants a morale bonus, and altering it to change the amount of its bonus if the courageous power is active on an equipped weapon, we'd like to be certain that we're implementing what will be the final rules for this power, and we won't have to undo all that work when this item is errata-ed.

So what now? I maybe post this in the "ask Jason Bulmahn" thread? He isn't all to keen on rules questions, but a clear yay or nay would be very usuefull.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Wow, I'm a little surprised this was marked "no response required" given the confusion on the matter.... I too would be interested in an official response.


I started trying to use the Hero Lab editor to build "our" version of Courageous. I quickly realized that it was going to be pretty complicated.

My read on this is that, whether intended or not, the RAW is that it works for any morale bonus. Paizo feels no need to change the RAW and is not obligated to correct any misinterpretations made by Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf is (understandably) waiting until their hands are forced to make a laborious fix to the item ability.

So I don't see this getting any resolution anytime soon.


I ran into the same issue under temp adjustments I give my self a boost to Str and con and say it is from my weapon. i have to manually click them off when not raging but it works.

Silver Crusade

redward wrote:

I started trying to use the Hero Lab editor to build "our" version of Courageous. I quickly realized that it was going to be pretty complicated.

My read on this is that, whether intended or not, the RAW is that it works for any morale bonus. Paizo feels no need to change the RAW and is not obligated to correct any misinterpretations made by Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf is (understandably) waiting until their hands are forced to make a laborious fix to the item ability.

So I don't see this getting any resolution anytime soon.

Well I postet in the ask Jason Bulmahn thread after all, and asked how to resolve this issue, maybe we will get a response on how to handle this.

I actually understand the Lone Wolf guys, not to invest all that work, if the issue is unclear.

Silver Crusade

Powers of thread necromancy, activate!

The issue came up in another thread link, apparently the HeroLab people emailed SKR and he told them that the weapon enhancement is only supposed to interact with saving throws against fear.

RAI seems to be clear, so instead of broken, it now has just a very narrow appeal (to be honest, I can't imagine ever using it).

If only we could be a FAQ on the matter so this issue doesn't creep up on people, I am pretty sure that some GMs prefer this ruling.

EDIT: Link to Herolab forum post: link.

EDIT 2: Upon reading the reply, apparently courageous is supposed to improve any moral bonus to saving throws, and while the program output is a bit unclear (the stacking bonus is mentioned under conditional, which isn't the case if the user is under the effect of heroism.

Actually this seems like a fair compromise between utterly broken and very circumstantial.

Shadow Lodge

Is there a way to get this marked "Yes, a response is actually required." Getting tired of seeing FAQ requests marked this way without the supposedly clear answer not being posted.


Mystic Lemur wrote:
Is there a way to get this marked "Yes, a response is actually required." Getting tired of seeing FAQ requests marked this way without the supposedly clear answer not being posted.

The necroing is real.

But to add, I've made a thread that has hit over 400 posts and over 60 FAQ requests, I suggest looking there for an answer.


What answer do you need? A cloak of resistance provides a blanket to all saves for a fraction of the cost of what they say is a fear only bonus?

The idea that a +4 weapon with Furious and Courageous is somehow to powerful so it's broken is laughable. Having to buy a +6 weapon overall in cost to make it work for one type of class power and for limited times a day? Not broken considering otherwise you paid thousands more gold In a +6 weapon to gain a +4 weapon and a bonus vs fear.

Double the cost more. And 8k on top of that.

It's all morale bonuses. It says "in addition." And "any morale".

PS. Going to now convince my skalds party to gain Furious courageous weapons. Because reasons.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

SKR replied in a previous thread on this that it would only apply to morale bonuses to saves per his discussion with the dev team. Having this actually answered in FAQ instead of privately from Paizo to WolfLair, is desired.

This isn't new. It's came up more times than I can count as being a HL bug and each time answered as "not a bug according to Paizo."

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